In the space of just a decade, the Internet, because it provides access to information, and the ability to publish information, in revolutionary ways, has emerged from relative obscurity to international prominence. Whereas, in general, an internet is a network of networks, the Internet is a global collection of interconnected local, mid-level, and wide-area networks that use the Internet Protocol (IP) as a network layer protocol. Whereas the Internet embraces many local- and wide-area networks, a given local- or wide-area network may or may not form part of the Internet.
As the Internet and its underlying technologies have become increasingly familiar, attention has become focused on Internet security and computer network security in general. With unprecedented access to information has also come unprecedented opportunities to gain unauthorized access to data, change data, destroy data, make unauthorized use of computer resources, interfere with the intended use of computer resources, etc. These opportunities have been exploited time and time again by many types of malware including, but is not limited to computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc. As experience has shown, the frontier of cyberspace has its share of scofflaws, resulting in increased efforts to protect the data, resources, and reputations of those embracing intranets and the Internet.
Recently, some new types of software have emerged, collectively called “spyware.” Spyware, while not as malicious as the aforementioned conventional viruses, Trojan horses, etc., may still cause problems for computer users. For example, spyware may be designed to log keystrokes, track which websites a computer user visits, and/or transmit personal information to a third party.
In the context of the present description, the term spyware is further deemed to include other related types of similar software such as adware, dialer software, other equivalents, and/or any other software that is less malicious than conventional malware. For example, adware is typically designed to download and display advertisements on a screen of a computer, and can be very intrusive. Dialer software, on the other hand, is designed to redirect a dial-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) connection of a computer to a different, more expensive phone number, in exchange for access to something, typically pornography.
Often, this software is marketed as legitimate applications which the computer user ostensibly installs willingly. For example, a free music player application may be come bundled with adware and require that the adware be installed before the music player application will work. The owner of the adware conventionally pays the owner of the music player to include the adware.
Although some of these examples of spyware border on legitimacy, many of these applications are poorly written, and cause compatibility problems with other software. Moreover, spyware can be very intrusive, waste network bandwidth, and cause a slew of other problems.
Currently, there is a market for applications (e.g. spyware scanners, etc.) which scan a computer for these types of software. Such applications remove such software, and repair any other incidental damage that may have been caused (e.g. the alteration of web browser configuration data, etc.).
While there are a number of stand-alone products which provide such services, there are numerous related problems. For example, there may be a performance impact when a spyware scanner is run simultaneously with a virus scanner. There is also often some duplication of effort between such spyware and virus scanners, thus wasting resources. Further, spyware scanners are not designed with enterprises in mind in terms of deployment, reporting, and updating mechanisms. Still yet, even an enterprise-ready spyware scanner introduces duplication in deployment, reporting and updating.
There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other problems associated with the prior art.